Hi Theresa
You are frustrated with good reason, and one rule of good planning (for training or meetings) is to have an agenda and stick to it!

1.Are you doing rotation? It seems that if you are doing the workshops, your children would not be bored.  Or perhaps some of the frustration is that the teachers are bored too and feel you can't share that.

 

2. Look for resources on the web on dealing with special needs kids. There are now some articles here at rotation.org about those issues too.

3. Contact whoever is doing the training and ask for specific help. If the "trainers" are not educators or do not know how to deal with the issues you are struggling with, suggest that a public school special ed teacher be invited to come and talk or at least provide some resources for you and others who are teaching.

4. Have the trainers at your church look at the training presentation that is free on this website.

5. Offer to be part of the solution and help plan the training events. !!!

6. Check with your denomination to see if there are people or resources that could be tapped to help provide training and support for the volunteers.

7. Contact other churches in your area to see if they have resources or people who could be helpful to you and perhaps to your church.

Finally, take care of yourself and know your limits. It sounds as though you are giving a great deal of your time and energy and perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed because you are trying to do too much. It's also possible that others feel exactly like you do, and you need to formulate a strategy to approach the people who are running you into the ground. 

I hope that is helpful.
Blessings
Jan S

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Originally posted by JanS:
Hi Theresa
You are frustrated with good reason, and one rule of good planning (for training or meetings) is to have an agenda and stick to it!

Thanks . From some others' reactions, I thought maybe I was the one who was wrong.

quote:

1.Are you doing rotation? It seems that if you are doing the workshops, your children would not be bored.

I wish we were doing rotation. Grades 1-4 do a big room meeting (becoming a movie theater now), and then split up for a few minutes afterwards to classrooms by age, but it's not rotation. Preschool and kindergarten stay in the same classrooms. Preschoolers & kindergartners and adults use Lifeway. Several suggestions Lifeway has are good, but not for our situation - church does not allow us to cook or videos, for example, and neither Frank nor I see painting as a Sunday morning option. We tried stamping for fingerprints a few weeks ago, and that turned into a mess.

quote:

2. Look for resources on the web on dealing with special needs kids.

Mom and I look occasionally. She went to the denominational conference earlier this year, and connected with several people that work with special needs children, but they're across the country, not local. It's like almost everyone at church assumes that special needs people, whether children or adults, are going to go somewhere else. We're probably the biggest church in the area, and one of the most prominent, on an intersection between two highways, with 2 outside campuses - so why wouldn't some families at least consider us?

On the other hand, I know of one deaf church that's fairly close, but, I don't know of any local church that has a good and/or well-attended special needs program. I'm including deaf and blind within special needs so I don't have to type it all the time .

quote:

3. Contact whoever is doing the training and ask for specific help. If the "trainers" are not educators or do not know how to deal with the issues you are struggling with, suggest that a public school special ed teacher be invited to come and talk or at least provide some resources for you and others who are teaching.

My cousin is an assistant principal a few districts from here. She's also studying to become principal, so until October she's running like crazy, especially for her current class. If we see her over Thanksgiving, Mom and I are going to pick her brains for connections. Most of the teachers Mom taught with while I was in school and afterwards are either retired or dead.

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4. Have the trainers at your church look at the training presentation that is free on this website.

Mom and I have sent a couple of feelers out - Char, my "team leader" for first hour Sunday mornings is married to Emerson, the Discipleship/Administrative pastor, the numbers guy who heads up the training. When Dad, Mom and I went up to Tanja's church, I had to tell Char I wasn't going to be there that Sunday. I'm almost positive I gave her the link then, but doubt she's seen the new explanation video. Will send her a link

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5. Offer to be part of the solution and help plan the training events.

Let me get calmed down enough to do so first. The adult teachers are going through a book, to begin with. Like most other people, I'm having some hard financial and work problems at the moment. There's not a meeting in December. I will revisit the idea early next year.

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6. Check with your denomination to see if there are people or resources that could be tapped to help provide training and support for the volunteers.
7. Contact other churches in your area to see if they have resources or people who could be helpful to you and perhaps to your church.

I haven't done any or much of this - it's a good way to go, thanks

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It seems to me that the training should focus at least part of the time on Bible study of the unit that will be coming up, and part of the time on useful skills and tools to make the volunteers more effective in the class room.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!! A woman after my own heart .

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Finally, take care of yourself and know your limits. It sounds as though you are giving a great deal of your time and energy and perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed because you are trying to do too much.

Thanks. Things are busy and stressful here.

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I hope that is helpful~ I expect there will be others that will chime in with good ideas too!
Blessings
Jan S

Definitely helpful - thank you so much

Theresa

You can't really do much about the other people who don't seem to be on the same page as you but you CAN control your classroom.

 

I wish you could do rotation, but you can BORROW rotation concepts and ideas.

 

For example, always review the past week's lesson prior to introducing a new one.

And bring in more media-based activities, rather than "table" and "reading/worksheet" activities.

 

No video?No cooking?

Ok- how about puppets, storytelling, drama, or dramatic reading. Lots of kids REALLY like acting!

No cooking? Bah humbug! I got around that one at one of the churches where I work by doing food activities that don't require cooking! ---Twelve tribes trail mix, pomander balls, frosting cookies, and so forth.

My husband started something with his group- a "prayer rope". The kids all hold onto the rope during prayers. This avoids the hand squeezing, "ewww", and other problems and distractions with group prayer.

And...unless the meetings are mandatory-skip 'em. Tell the "authority" the truth:  That you either need the time to PREPARE GREAT LESSONS ON YOUR OWN, or they can change their lame training into something that really helps and doesn't waste time and run you down.

God bless you and keep up your spirits!

Hi Theresa,
Sorry you're going through this.
It doesn't sound like "training" to me either.

2 hrs a month after church is very ambitious, even "extreme", -which only makes it worse because it's done so poorly.

If it were me, I'd just stop going to the event.
And if they asked, I'd tell them the truth, assuming you haven't already done that. Otherwise, you're headed for the door, either literally or figuratively or spiritually.

It's badly led, bone-headed ideas like this which only confirms many people's secret belief that the church is often INEPT. You/we can help by not being co-dependent!

<>< Neil

Thanks Shayln for the tips .I was myself frustated with similar situation and wasnt able to find a way out.